turers of little England were more than all the profits from
all the lands of the United States.

A Frenchman claimed the palm for France, because in France the people
were artists; from a little basis, from material well-nigh worthless in
itself, the Frenchman could, by infusing French brain into it, create a
thing of beauty for which the world was glad to exchange gold and gems.

Then Browning said: "You are all right, looking from a present horizon;
all wrong, when the years are taken into account. The great country of
the world is to be the country that produces the metals in the greatest
quantity and variety, and whose people acquire the art of turning them to
the best account. This ship that we are on, a few months ago, was but
unsightly ore in the ground. Look at it now! Tried by fire and fused with
labor, it has grown into this marvelous structure. England's greatness
and wealth are due, primarily, all to her mining. Her civilization can be
measured by her progress in reducing metals. She will begin to fall
behind soon, for America has, in addition to such mines as England
possesses, endless mines of gold and silver, and, after all, the precious
metals rule the nations and measure their civilization. It has always
been so and always will be. Those mines in America will build up greater
manufactures than England possesses; they will create artists more
skilled than even beautiful France can boast of. A hundred years hence,
all other nations will be second-class by comparison."

The next day the conversation was resumed and carried on with much
spirit, until Sedgwick, who had been reading through it all, laid down
his book, and in a brief pause of the talk said:

"Neither fruitful fields, rich mines, nor skilled artisans, nor all
combined, are enough to make great nations. A hundred nations existed
when Rome was founded. They had as fair prospects as did Rome, but ninety
of the hundred are forgotten; the other ten are remembered but as
inferior nations. It was the stock of men and women that made Rome's
grandeur and terror. For five hundred years an unfaithful wife was never
known in Rome. The result was Rome had to be great and grand.

"I stood once on the crest of the Rocky Mountains in Montana. Near
together were two springs, out of each of which the water flowed away
in a creek. One follows the mountains down to the eastward, the other
to the west. One finds its final home in the Gulf of Mexico, the other